By these measures Frederick William succeeded in crushing all open opposition to his will over the whole of his incongruous dominions. In Cleves and in Prussia, as in Pomerania and Brandenburg, he was the centre and the mainspring of government. There was no local or constitutional authority which could legally claim superiority to him, or practically exercise equality with him. But though he was the supreme power in the state he had not yet gained absolute power over the state. There were still many local bodies of advice and administration, with well-ascertained powers, whose assistance was necessary to him in carrying his will into effect, though they had no right to dictate to him the policy which he was to pursue. He had given to his state political unity, he had gained for himself and his successors political independence, he had won for himself and his family within his own dominions political leadership, but he had not as yet established administrative uniformity. That was necessarily a work of slow growth, of a century rather than a lifetime. It was not completed till the days of Frederick William I. and Frederick the Great, but it was begun by the Great Elector. The important department of patronage he at once took under his personal control, and appointed all the chief administrative officers in his various dominions. As head of the army, he separated the military from the civil revenues, and placed the former entirely under the management of the minister of war, who was of course his own nominee. War expenditure was thus wholly removed from the control of the civil authorities, and the army was organised on a professional basis. By a series of ordinances he established an elaborate system of social distinctions and privileges, which tended to centralise society under him, and attach the nobles to him by social distinction now that he had deprived them of political power. In these ways the government of Brandenburg-Prussia received from him that military and aristocratic character which its greater prosperity has only increased. [Sidenote: =Encouragement of trade and manufactures.=] Frederick William was also by no means unmindful of the general welfare of his people. The constant want of money under which he laboured, was in itself enough to draw his attention to the fact, that the real weakness of his power lay in the sterile and poverty-stricken state of his country. To improve this, he set an excellent example of economy in the wise and careful management of his own domains, he promoted numerous schemes of industrial and commercial enterprise, and he cordially welcomed the Huguenot exiles from France, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, who brought into Brandenburg many of the finer manufactures, of which France had for some time had the monopoly. [Sidenote: =War with Sweden, 1674.=]